Tag Archives: Health

Our heart has an intelligence which impacts our physical/mental/emotional health more than most people realize. This book will teach you how to harness the power of the heart to potentially help you make better decisions, better control your emotions, increase personal productivity, slow down aging, enhance creativity, and many more positive benefits

Key Takeaways

Why the heart and the HeartMath Solution?

Our theory is that the heart links us to a higher intelligence through an intuitive domain where spirit and humanness merge. We can develop the perceptual capacity as we learn to do with stages and philosophers have asked us to do for ages simply listen to and follow the wisdom of the heart. Heart intelligence is truly emotional intelligence and we’ve concluded that intelligence and intuition are heightened when we learn to listen more deeply to our own heart

Too often the relationship of our thoughts and emotions and how they effect physical change is ignored

Health is a delicate balance of rhythm, while disease (“dis-ease”) results from dis-rhythm

The heart is at the core of our body and at the core of how we think and feel. The solution is derived from realizing that the heart is both a physical object, a rhythmic organ, and love itself

By practicing the HeartMath solution, you’ll be able to clearly see when you’re in stress. Then you can use Freeze-Frame to determine your best course of action. But even once you have intuitive clarity on what to do, you may still experience residues of uncomfortable or perplexing feelings. When those residues clog the system, you need to apply Cut-Thru, shifting your emotional state so that you’re not only thinking better but also feeling better. Both intelligence and intuition are heightened when we learn to listen more deeply to our own hearts

A primary goal of the HeartMath Solution is to increase coherence, bringing us to a state of optimal efficiency. Stress creates incoherence in our system, so increasing coherence necessitates reducing stress.

The goal of HeartMath is to help you learn to generate emotional and mental coherence deliberately – on demand – so that ultimately you spend more of your day at this optimal, regenerative level of energy efficiency

10 key techniques and tools that govern the HeartMath solution

Acknowledge your heart intelligence and its importance for making choices big and small

Reduce stress and live more often in a state of coherence

Learn and apply Freeze Frame which creates a balance between the two branches of the autonomic nervous system, the sympathetic and parasympathetic

Care but don’t overcare – when we care too much, it turns into anxiety, worry, insecurity

Learn and apply Cut-Thru – a method to help you stop experiencing emotions that create incoherence and energy deficits

Do heart Lock-Ins – amplifies the power of your heart. Quieting the mind and sustaining a solid connection with the heart – locking into its power – adds buoyancy and regenerative energy to your entire system. it also makes it easier to stay in contact with your heart intelligence and its intuitive messages amidst your daily activities

Actualize what you know – applying all these tools to your daily life

Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

Our emotional states are reflected best in our heart rhythms, as seen in HRV measurements. HRV is defined as a measurement of beat-to-beat changes in the heart rate. Loss of variability is actually a sign of disease and a strong predictor of future health problems. In essence, HRV is a measure of the flexibility of our heart and nervous system, and as such reflects our health and fitness. It also allows us to listen in on and interpret ongoing, two-way conversations between our heart and our brain and is an important measurement to how well we’re balancing our lives mentally and emotionally. Disharmony in our heart rhythms leads to inefficiency and increased stress on the heart and other organs, while harmonious rhythms are more efficient and less stressful to the body’s systems. Our heart rhythms affect the brain’s ability to process information, make decisions, and solve problems, and experience and express creativity.

Head is great at pattern recognition but it can easily get locked into set patterns. Getting locked into this closed mindset can often hurt us and cut off our creativity. The intelligence of the heart, on the other hand, processes information in a less linear, more intuitive and direct way. The heart isn’t only open to new possibilities, it actively scans for them, ever seeking new, intuitive understanding. The head “knows” but the heart “understands”

The head often leads us into rationalizing and conceptualizing an issue instead of actualizing what the heart already knows and has communicated. When we react to life from the head without joining forces with the heart, our single-mindedness often leads us into childish, inelegant behavior that we’re ashamed of. If, on the other hand, we get the head in sync with the heart, we have the power of their teamwork on our side and can make the changes we know we ought to make

The lower heart refers to those feelings that are colored by the attachments and conditions placed on them by the mind. Conditional love is a good example. The higher heart is more allowing. It doesn’t hedge or barter. Authenticity is its own reward for the higher heart. But it takes emotional maturity to manifest the heart’s qualities with consistency

When we learn to manage our emotions long enough to stop and shift our attention to the quieter message of the heart, we can gain a wider perspective on any situation, often saving ourselves from hurt, frustration, and pain

Entrainment

The heart is the strongest biological oscillator in the human system and therefore, the rest of the body’s systems are pulled into entrainment with the hearty’s rhythms. The heart communicates with the rest of the body in three ways: neurologically (nerve impulses), biochemically (hormones and neurotransmitters), and biophysically (pressure waves). However, there may be a fourth way – energetically (through electromagnetic field interactions). The heart’s EMF is the most powerful produced by the body, it not only permeates every cell in the body but also radiates outside of us; it can be measured up to 8-10 feet away with sensitive detectors called magnetometers. It not only affects our own brains and bodies but can also be registered by the people around us. When your body is in entrainment, its major systems work in harmony. Your biological systems operate at higher efficiency because of that harmony, and as a result you think and feel better

When we get the head in sync with the heart, the power of both works for us and we can make changes that we know we ought to make

Can develop their ability to maintain entrainment by sustaining sincere, heart-focused states such as appreciation and love

Freeze-Frame

A technique to increase and improve the communication between your heart and mind while reducing stress. It is invaluable for managing thoughts to prevent the needless depletion of energy. Because this technique increases mental clarity, it will help you make sound decisions, even in what would formerly have been highly stressful situations

It is important to monitor our inner thoughts and feelings. Some of it adds energy, while others deplete it. Understanding energy assets and deficits provides a key to accessing your heart intelligence. Core heart feelings such as appreciation, non-judgment, and forgiveness increase energy assets and eliminate many deficits.

We can look at life as a high-speed movie. We get so caught up in the momentum of the story that we forge that it’s made up of individual moments. From one minute to the next, we having an astonishing range of thoughts, emotions, and experiences. So, Freeze-Frame enhances your power to stop your reaction to the move of life at any moment. It allows you to get a clearer perspective on what’s happening in a single frame and allows you to edit the next frame from a point of balance and understanding. It can be done anytime, anywhere, whenever you want to stop stress in its tracks and get quick intuitive access. Setting daily alarms and reminders can be helpful

You must learn to entrain your biological systems to your heart. This allows in access to new information and a shift in perfection. By shifting focus toward your heart and away from whatever problem you face, you divert energy from your perception of the problem. When you consciously act from a point of heart balance, you connect more naturally with what real self – not your reactive self – wants to think or do. Listening to your heart isn’t hard, but attuning to its inner signals is different for everyone and often takes a little practice

Don’t underestimate the power of neutral. The ability to find neutral, and stay put there until your heart shows you clearly what to do, is a sign of balance and maturity. The neutral state is a conduit for objectivity in the moment

The 5-step process creates a harmonious relationship between the head and the heart

Recognize the stressful feeling and Freeze-Frame it. Take a time out

Make a sincere effort to shift your focus away from the racing mind or disturbed emotions to the area around your heart. Pretend you’re breathing through your heart to help focus your energy in this area. Keep your focus there for ten seconds or more

Recall a positive, fun feeling or time you’ve had in life and try to experience it

Now, using your intuition, common sense, and sincerity, ask your heart, what would be a more efficient response to the situation, one that would minimize future stress?

Listen to what your heart says in answer to your question. It’s an effective way to put your reactive mind and emotions in check and an in-house source of common sense solutions

When to practice

At transition points (from home to work or work to home) so that you are fully present in the moment

Before conversations

Any time communication is going off-track

At the beginning of the day – set the tone for positive activity, calibrate your system for a coherent day, clear mental and emotional cobwebs

At the end of the day, to feel positive completion of the day and ensure a good night’s sleep

Coherence

The state that makes the difference between a book light and a laser beam. Inner coherence is a benchmark of intelligence and a cornerstone of effective living.

When a system is coherent, virtually no energy is wasted, because all its components are operating in harmony. When every system in your body is aligned, your personal power is at its peak. Learning to cultivate that rewarding state of coherence enhances our ability to adapt, to flex, and to innovate. It allows us to rapidly get back to a feeling of balance and poise after stressful events and to improve communication, health, and overall well-being. A balanced heart and agile mind create access to innate intelligence and an enhanced capacity for greater internal coherence – the optimal state of being

An age of rising complexity, speed, distractions is taking away from our ability to be in coherence so, those who are able to, have a greater advantage than ever before. New research has found that what creates more stress for people than any other is having to shift concepts, intentions, and focus to too many different tasks, many times an hour.

It’s a vicious cycle: stress destroys coherence, and incoherence causes stress. Chronic stress is one of the most prevalent and dangerous situations today and affects every part of our health and psyche. The brain doesn’t know between real threat and perceived threat so the physical and emotional reaction is the same. Indulging anger is harmful in more ways than one. So, if we can’t express it or repress it, what do we do? The answer is to recognize the anger but choose to respond to the situation differently.

The solution to stress management lies in how we perceive the stressors in our lives. It’s not really the events that cause stress; it’s how we perceive those events. Improving the communication between the heart and brain helps one achieve coherence. By paying attention to our perceptions and reactions, we can eliminate the chronic stress that seeps through our bodies like a slow poison. Learning how to alter our standard stress reactions by perceiving life’s events from a place of intuition, balance, poise, and flexibility require a major shift – through a shift from head to heart

Heart + Head = Coherence

The brain is not the sole source of intelligence. We can realize that it’s a remarkable partner to the heart, not its master

Energy efficiency

Mental and emotional diets determine our overall energy levels, health, and well-being to a far greater extent than most people realize. Every thought, feeling, no matter how big or small, impacts our inner energy reserves

Life is an energy economy game. Each day ask yourself, “Are my energy expenditures (actions, reactions, thoughts, and feelings) productive or nonproductive? During the course of my day, have I accumulated more stress or more peace?

Keeping an asset/deficit sheet for a few days will give you a clear picture of your energy account

Learning to “just say no” to emotional reactions isn’t repression. Saying no means not engaging the frustration, anger, judgement, or blame. Without engagement, you won’t have anything to repress

By using your heart as a compass, you can see more clearly which direction to go to stop self-defeating behavior. If you take just one mental or emotional habit that really bothers or drains you and apply heart intelligence to it, you’ll see a noticeable difference in your life

Power Tools of the Heart

Sincerity is the generator that brings core heart feelings such as appreciation and forgiveness into coherence and gives them power. By coming into coherence, we learn to take our emotions from a light bulb to a laser beam, applying them with focused intention and consistency. Sincerity is essential, it motivates our heart and aligns our true intentions.

Power Tool 1: Appreciation

Appreciation is a blend of thankfulness, admiration, approval, and gratitude

It is magnetic and highly energizing, helping to bring you into coherence and entrainment

Opening your heart is like putting a wide-angle lens on the camera of your perception. Suddenly, more of the world comes into view

Power Tool 2: Non-judgment

Judgments create stress and incoherence, and these limit the full range of our intelligence. Yet we’re socially conditioned to judge

One of the most important things to note about the downside of judgment is that the person judging is the one who’s hurt the most

Making a mistake and then judging yourself harshly is simply adding fuel to the fire

The heart can give you the awareness needed to become more neutral, letting things unfold. That’s what non-judgment is all about. It allows you to be aware of your opinions but always be open to new thoughts, actions, ideas, people, etc.

When you find yourself in strong judgment, use the Freeze-Frame technique to get neutral and find a more balanced, intuitive perspective

Power Tool 3: Forgiveness

You don’t forgive others for their sake, but for yours. Forgiveness is simply the most energy-efficient option you face, and the only one that will foster health and well-being

The incoherence that results from holding on to resentments and unforgiving attitudes keeps you from being aligned with your true self and blocks you from your next level of quality life experience

Forgiving yourself is often the hardest part but also the most important. Compromised forgiveness means that somehow the effort was incomplete. That lack of completion can mean the difference between a breakthrough into a completely new and different life experience and the same old patterns repeating themselves.

Fulfillment is based on two elements: awareness and performance. Self-development comes from the increased awareness of where you are right now and learning what is needed in order to grow. And self-expression is how you perform, what you do about it

Management of emotions

Emotion = energy in motion. It’s the feeling sensation and physiological reaction that make a specific emotion positive or negative, and it’s our thoughts about it that give it meaning.

Emotional energy works at a higher speed than the speed of thought because your feeling world operates at a higher level than your mind. We evaluate everything emotionally as we perceive it. We think about it afterwards

Heart coherence helps balance our emotional state. It aligns head and heart to facilitate higher brain function, which appears to create a direct link to intuition or super-high-speed intelligence. Intuition bypasses mental analysis and gives us direct perception independent of any reasoning process. Intuition gives us clarity on how to direct and manage our feelings before we invest emotional energy into them

Emotions in themselves aren’t really intelligent but have an organizing intelligence behind them. How we organize our thoughts and emotions and what we do with them reflect our intelligence. When we let our unmanaged thoughts dictate how we respond emotionally, we’re asking for trouble

A benchmark of new emotional management lies in realizing that our past can no longer be blamed for our actions in the present

Emotional intelligence implies the ability to self-regulate our moods, control our impulses, delay gratification, persist despite frustration, and motivate ourselves. When we’re equipped with these strengths, the twists and turns of life don’t get us down. We roll with them

Taking the significance out of issues and events is second nature to adults dealing with kids but we don’t tend to offer that same help to ourselves. The problem is that when we ignore one deficit emotion and refuse to take the significance out even after we’re aware of it, the emotional depletion builds, undermining our progress in other areas

One of the main keys to emotional management is learning to quickly arrest a draining or deficit emotion and generate an attitude shift from a place of deep heart maturity. To reclaim the energy out of a deficit emotion, we have to take out the significance we’ve assigned to it. To take the significance out, we first make an effort to back off; then the heart can open up.

Care is a powerful motivator. It inspires and gently reassures us. Care feels good – whether we’re giving it or receiving it. Care provides a conduit for your spirit’s expression in the midst of human existence. The more you truly care, the more you’ll come to know of yourself and others

When we cross the line into overcare, our original caring is tainted by stress. It then becomes self-defeating, because it compromises our available energy to perform

Perfectionism, over-attachment, projection of thoughts/mental images about the future, worry, anxiety, insecurity, expectations, comparisons are all manifestations of overcare

Signals from the heart let you know when your care has become overcare, if you’re willing to listen. Every time you eliminate an overcare, the relief is tremendous, and you store away power that makes fighting overcare easier the next time

Cut-Thru

The purpose of Cut-Thru is to help people recognize and reprogram the subconscious emotional memory paths that, through long-term reinforcement, influence our perception, color our day-to-day thoughts and feelings, and condition our responses to future situations. Cut-Thru is for more deeply ingrained emotional issues than Freeze-Frame can help you resolve

Cut-Thru facilitates emotional coherence and allows you to transform emotions you don’t want into new, regenerative feelings. And it does so without resorting to rationalization or repression

Use Cut-Thru to shift out of emotions that are draining your energy, regain emotional balance, and eliminate long-standing emotional issues

Managing emotions with Cut-Thru requires that you first recognize how you’re feeling. Breathing through the heart and solar plexus helps you anchor your emotions. Assuming objectivity leads to emotional maturity

Cut-Thru helps you build your self-motivation, emotional capabilities, empathy, and you’ll begin to move through life at the most efficient speed possible – the speed of balance

The 6 Steps of Cut-Thru

Be aware of how you feel about the issue at hand

Focus on the heart and solar plexus – breathe love and appreciation through this area for ten seconds or more to help anchor your attention there

Assume objectivity about the feeling or issue – as if it were someone else’s problem

Rest in neutral – in your rational, mature heart

Soak and relax any disturbed or perplexing feelings in the compassion of the heart, dissolving the significance a little at a time. Take your time doing this step; there’s no time limit. Remember, it’s not the problem that causes energy drain as much as the significance you assign the problem

After extracting as much significance as you can, from your deep heart sincerely ask for appropriate guidance or insight. If you don’t get an answer, find something to appreciate for a while. Appreciation of anything often facilitates intuitive clarity on issues you’ve been working on

Heart Lock-In

This technique helps you discover that you have your own internal source of regeneration. Quieting the mind and sustaining a solid connection with the heart – locking into its power – adds buoyancy and regenerative energy to your entire system. The more your core heart feelings come into play, the more you realize how much can be gained from a loving, open-hearted perspective. It helps with coherence, entrainment, improves immune functions, helping with mental, physical, and emotional health

HeartMath in school and at home

Heart Lock-In can be done with your children at the start of family time, quality time, or before dinner or bed

Having kids do Freeze-Frame or Cut-Thru helps them calm emotions, better communicate, gain mental clarity, gain wider perspective and better understand what they’re feeling and why. Fostering emotional management from the heart may be one of the greatest gifts you can give children

When emotions run high at school or during sports, performing these same techniques will have similar positive effects

What I got out of it

Some really helpful tips and shows the power of coherence, HRV, entrainment, breathing properly, the power of neutrality. A physical, minimum effective dose to get many (not nearly all!) of the benefits associated with meditation.

An incredible in depth look at sleep, the research behind it, and its vast array of benefits – mentally, emotionally, physically

Key Takeaways

12 Healthy sleep habits tips

Keep a consistent sleep schedule – setting an alarm an hour before bedtime to know when to start winding down is often helpful

A consistent bed time and wake time is really important. You would think that if you normally sleep 8 hours and cut off 2 hours in the morning, that you’re losing 25%, right? Nope – because of sleep cycles and their timing, you could be losing around 60-90% of vital REM sleep

Get 30 minutes of exercise per day but not 2-3 hours before bed

Avoid big dinners and drinking too many liquids before sleep

Avoid alcohol before sleep

Avoid caffeine and nicotine

Avoid medicines which delay or disrupt your sleep

Relax for at least 30 minutes without too many lights or stimulation for at least a half hour before bed

Take a hot bath before bed as this helps your core body temperature drop letting you fall sleep faster and get deeper sleep

Don’t take naps after 3 PM

A long night sleep with a 30 to 60 minute nap in the afternoon seems to be the ideal scenario that our ancestors formed and that we should try to follow if possible

Have a dark, cold (between 65 and 68°F) and technology free bedroom

Get enough sunlight at the right times – try to get at least half an hour out of direct sunlight a day and emphasize it in the morning and try to avoid it as much as possible in the evenings with sunglasses and by staying inside

Don’t lie in bed awake – if you’re having trouble falling asleep or feel anxious get out of bed and do something relaxing but don’t just lie there

2/3 of adults don’t get enough sleep and this has horrible physical, mental and emotional health detriments. It is one of the four core human drives along with needing to eat, drink, and reproduce and it is found across the entire animal kingdom. Although this would lead us to believe it is extremely important, sleep has been neglected for a long time and most people put it off and take the point of view that they’ll sleep when they’re dead and this will only get them there that much quicker

There appears to be no major organ or physical or emotional function which does not benefit from deep sleep and which does not get harmed by lack of sleep. It helps with memory, learning, making rational decisions, being emotionally stable, helping us maintain weight, boosting our immune system, consolidating memories, giving the brain a “virtual reality” space to play out ideas and memories and put them into long-term storage. Sleep helps consolidate memories and put them into long-term storage but by also thinking about which memories you want to save before you go to bed you could increase their clarity even further

Melatonin is the night time hormone which gets released to tell the body to start preparing for sleep. Sleep pressure is caused by adenosine and it is the second portion of why we get sleepy but caffeine and other stimulants block it which is why they help us feel more awake

The suprachiasmatic nucleus controls the circadian rhythms of our bodies which in turn controls hormones, appetite, when we want to sleep, body temperature and much more

It is a genetic predisposition and not a choice whether we are morning or late night people

3 easy questions to determine if you’re sleep deprived: Do you wake up without an alarm? Could you fall asleep by 11am? Could you function at a high level without caffeine?

Caffeine has a longer half life than most people realize: a cup at lunch could still be affecting you by bedtime so that you don’t get as deep of a sleep as you otherwise would

Sleep is Mother Nature’s best attempt at contra-death

There is no replacement for proper sleep – not caffeine, not willpower, not brief naps, nothing

Sleep is a unifying feature of the animal kingdom found across all birds and mammals although the time and specifics change quite dramatically

The author argues that REM sleep is one of the most important things that has shaped us evolutionarily and helps us with our complex socio-cultural and emotional signals that we have to deal with as being part of a complex society. And, equally as important, REM sleep seems to help with creativity and these two factors help to humans get on top of the world hierarchy extremely quickly

Sleep not only helps consolidate memories but also helps incorporate skills such as music, sports, movement, and other things. Pianists often find that after practicing for a day that they can wake up the next morning play the new tune perfectly

10 consecutive days of seven hours of sleep impairs you as much as going a full day without sleep

The brain cannot accurately assess how sleep deprived it is when it is sleep deprived

REM sleep and dreaming are necessary for emotional healing to take place after difficult or traumatic events

When lacking sleep, we revert to a more primordial reactive state where we don’t consider the broad picture, the true context, or the people we are dealing with and it is partially responsible for when you just “snap”

Lack of dreaming distorts your ability to recognize faces and facial patterns confusing friendly gestures for menacing ones and making you more jumpy and aggressive

Dreaming helps you problem solve and become more creative and some people have tried to control this aspect through lucid dreaming to help them in their work, lives, or business (and sometimes successfully so!).

It is sleep and dreaming which helps you connect disparately connected facts, it is the difference between knowledge and wisdom

Snooze buttons are terrible for our health as they jolt us out of sleep not once like an alarm does but several different times

Teenagers’ circadian rhythm‘s are shifted later in the day and there has been great success with schools who experimented with later start times. Teenagers starting at 8 AM would be similar to most adults having to get up and get ready at around 3 AM. There are many pragmatic reasons why this is difficult to do but the it has shown that by shifting start times later there is a 70% reduction in teen traffic mortality rates.

Another side-effect of lacking sleep may be ADHD. Young kids who are sleep deprived show many similar symptoms which are associated with ADHD and may be part of the reason why this diagnosis has become so much more common in modern times. Many students aren’t actually hyper active but merely lacking sleep

For businesses he recommends setting up some sort of incentive system to get people to sleep more. He recommends using a sleep credit system where total hours of sleep and sleep continuity are measured in the rewards are either financial or extra time off and vacations

What I got out of it

Incredible data backing up and reinforcing how important sleep is. The 12 sleep tips alone made this worthwhile

“This book will show you how to accept your future dream as your current reality and to do so in a way that your body believes is happening “now.” You can discover how to set into motion a cascade of emotional and physiological processes that reflect your new reality. The neurons in your brain, the sensory neurites in your heart, and the chemistry in your body all harmonize to mirror the new thinking, and the quantum possibilities of life are rearranged to replace the unwanted circumstances of your past with the new circumstances that you’ve accepted as the present. The hope is that this book provides a roadmap for how to achieve some of these transcendental experiences yourself.”

Key Takeaways

We are not linear beings living linear lives but dimensional beings living dimensional lives

It takes a clear intent (coherent brain) and an elevated emotion (a coherent heart (to begin to change a persons biology from living in the last to living in the future. That combination of mind and body – of thoughts and feelings – also seems to influence matter. And that’s how you create reality

All frequencies carry information, including the electromagnetism our bodies give off

There are several energy centers within the body with their own chemistries, hormones, and brains and can be influenced to be more balanced and integrated. Learning how to shift from outer to inner focus (beta to alpha waves) is key to being able to program the autonomic nervous system

The more you understand the science and reasoning behind these meditations and practices, the easier you’ll be able to accept and give into them

There is a future you – a you who already exists in the eternal present moment – who is actually calling himself to the more familiar you who is reading this book. And that future you is more loving, more evolved, more conscious, more present, more kind, more exuberant, more mindful, more willful, more connected, more supernatural, and more whole. That is who is waiting for you to change your energy to match his or her energy on a daily basis so you can find that future you – who actually exists in the eternal now. And the only way you can create a new life, heal your body, or change your predictable future is to get beyond yourself. It takes practice to live in the present moment rather than the predictable future or familiar past

The quantum world, the fifth dimension, is not available through normal senses but only when we’re totally present can we transcend and reach this space where all potential futures are available to you. The quantum of unified field is an invisible field of energy and information – or you could say a field of intelligence or consciousness – that exists beyond space and time. Nothing physical or material exists there. It’s beyond anything you can perceive with your senses. This unified field of energy and information is what governs all the laws of nature. Dispenza thinks of the quantum field as energy which is self-organizing intelligence. The quantum field is filled with infinite amounts of energy vibrating beyond the physical world of matter and beyond our senses – invisible waves of energy available for us to use in creation

The brain thinks but the heart knows. The heart is the center of oneness, wholeness and unity consciousness

Physiologically, stress is akin to fighting for survival. No organism can live in this space for extended periods of time but in today’s world, many humans are at a low level of stress at all times. All energy is sent to deal with external threats and there is nothing left for internal growth and repair, compromising the immune system. But, with proper focus, meditation and breathing techniques, you can teach your brain and body what your ideal future state will feel like ahead of the actual experience. Your brain and body does not know the difference between the real event and the one you imagine and emotionally embrace. You can pull your present self into the future by having this intention crystal clear in your mind and body

Emotions are the chemical consequences (or feedback) of past experiences. The stronger the emotional quotient from any event – good or bad – the stronger the change in our internal chemistry. An experience becomes imprinted on the neural circuitry, and the emotion is then stored in the body – and that’s how our past becomes our biology

It is difficult and takes time but have to completely surrender, get out of the way and let go of wanting any specific outcome and simply open up to possibility

First have to master the concept of the present moment: the eternal now. Have to transcend the physical world and your identity and even time itself in order to turn possibility into reality. You have to get out of your own way, transcend the memory of yourself as an identity and allow something greater than you, something mystical, to take over.

Mind is the brain in action. Your brain is a product of the past; a living record of everything you have learned and experienced up to the present

Becoming aware of your thoughts is so important because thoughts influence feelings which influence behavior which influence life in a virtuous or negative cycle

Changing up your routine and trying new things forces you to be more present and aware because you have to be in the moment and can’t go on autopilot. If not in the present moment, you’re probably in a program (habit). There is no room for the unknown in a predictable life. The unknown is unfamiliar, uncertain – but it’s also exciting because it occurs in ways you cannot expect or anticipate

Something I need to incorporate more of: getting out of habits and routines (even though I feel they’re positive) to allow more space for the unknown and spontaneous to enter my life. Need energy to create an unknown experience in a new timeline if want to change something

Think of emotion as energy in motion, they are the chemical residues of experiences. Brain creates electrical charges through neurons and when these thoughts create chemical neurons that result in an emotion, those feelings create a magnetic charge. These merge to create an electromagnetic field equal to your state of being. Only way to change our lives is to change our energy – to change the electromagnetic field we are constantly broadcasting. In other words, to change our state of being, we have to change how we think and how we feel. What you put your attention on and mentally rehearse over and over again not only becomes who you are from a biological perspective, it also determines your future. An internal focus rather than external (inside body rather than imagining seeing self as though in a movie) had much more profound effects in muscle growth visualizing practices. Shows the power thought alone can have on the body. You have to think greater than how you feel to make any real, lasting changes

Honor this by taking an internal view and comparing self to previous self rather than others

Now know that it’s not the gene that creates disease but both the external and internal environments that program our genes to create the disease.

Experiences enrich the brain. Possessions fracture it’s energy, focus and attention. When outer world objects such as people, problems, social media, etc. take so much of your attention and energy, there is little left for you to put on your inner world of thoughts and feelings. What you own eventually comes to own you – becoming a victim of your life rather than the creator of your life. Too many outside distractions gets your brain to fire out of order and to work inefficiently and out of sync. When your brain is incoherent, you get incoherent. How much of your energy is taken up by possessions, fear, greed, envy, etc. that could otherwise be put to creating a new destiny? This is a shift from somebody to no body, from something to no thing, from being somewhere to being no where, from being in linear time to being in no time. The different compartments that were once subdivided now start to unify and move toward a coherent, whole-brain state – where your brain can synchronize, organize and integrate. The brain then can slow down and connect with our autonomic nervous system, healing the body as our consciousness merges with its consciousness.

Goal of meditation is to create a reality from a world beyond your senses that’s defined not by your body as the mind but by you as the mind. So as you become aware of the program, you keep settling your body down into the present moment. The body wants to return to the familiar past because it wants to engage in a predictable future, but you keep settling it back down. Each time you overcome those automatic thoughts and habits, your will becomes greater than your program, you are reconditioning your body to a new mind. The hardest part of every war is the last battle. Push through this final stage to reach the unknown where all possibilities await

Just like an electron appears when we observe it but when we don’t it is a wave (possibility), focusing on our life gets you the known and by getting past this,being in the eternal present, and focusing on the unknown, turns your life into possibility. The longer you can linger in that field of infinite possibilities, without putting your attention on your body, on things, or on people, places, and time, the longer you invest your energy into the unknown, the more you are going to create a new experience or new possibilities in your life. It’s the law. Need clear intention and elevated emotion – creating an electromagnetic signature that is equal to your state of being. You will literally tune in to the energy of a new future and the unified field will help endorse your creation

Paradox: The unknown has never let me down. Difficult, but surrender to it

These meditations will help you get in syntropy (opposite of entropy) by being aware and able to tune into higher energy frequencies

Meditate by using both convergent (narrow) focus and divergent (open, broad) focus by putting awareness to different parts of the body as well as the space surrounding the body, bringing you into coherence. Focusing on no thing, focusing on information rather than matter, allows your brain waves to slow down and move from beta to alpha – sensing and feeling rather than thinking. This allows you to move into the seat of your body’s operating system, the ANS, and work in a more holistic fashion

Energy centers have their own biological make up, glands, hormones, chemicals and individual mini brains. They help us in different ways and bringing attention to them brings energy to them – ka, pituitary, pineal, thyroid, heart, adrenal, digestive and pancreatic, sexual (chakras). Getting that circuit flowing the way it was designed to is the whole point of doing the Blessing of the Energy Centers meditation – we bless each of these centers so we can get stuck energy flowing again. When our consciousness is not evolving, neither is our energy

Coherence is an orderly expression of frequency

The viral electromagnetic field of light we emit is who we really are. When we are stressed, our body consumer too much energy from this light field and our body can’t grow and repair. This leads to disease or imbalance. Can repair this through a more balanced lifestyle

Energy Centers meditation

Focus on each of the seven chakras and then the space around the chakras, while in a state of elevated emotion such as love or joy or gratitude

Start at first center (perineum), focus on it and then the space around it and bless it for the greatest good. Do this for all 7 centers and once get to the eighth (above head) bless it with gratitude. Raise the frequency on every step and then lie down for 15 minutes to let your body integrate it all

The breath is a way to pull the mind out of the body. You will be using your body as an instrument of consciousness to ascend your energy – turning those survival emotions into creative emotions. As you free your body from the chains of the past and liberate this energy, you have available energy to do the uncommon – to achieve the supernatural. By unlocking the energy locked in the first three centers and shifting them up the body, you will regain the natural, healthy electromagnetic state you need to be in to live optimally

Breath work: flex perineum, lower and upper abs, breathe through the nose and feel the energy running up your spine to your brain. Follow the breath up to the top of your head, hold your breathe for 10 seconds while keeping your muscles flexed, increasing the pressure inside your spinal cord and column. Exhale and relax your muscles. Do this for 3-10 breaths. This accelerates the upward movement of the cerebrospinal fluid, creating inductance and building up your electromagnetic field, unlocking huge amounts of ‘survival’ energy into divine or creative energy. This is not a passive process and takes huge amounts of will and intention and it is key to consistently feel elevated emotions, greater than what you and your body are used to feeling. The body will slowly catch on and catch up.

By getting our heart into coherence, we can access our heart’s intelligence and intuition which has many emotional and physiological benefits. Coherence begins with the steady, coherent drumbeat if the heart through cultivating, practicing and sustaining elevated emotions such as gratitude, inspiration, appreciation and more. The heart center is the union of our lower three animal centers and our upper three divine centers. Heart coherence helps with brain coherence and homeostasis, all necessary to function optimally

Heart is an auto rhythmic organ, the heartbeat is self initiated from within rather than from the brain. Gives out multiples more electromagnetism than the brain and more information passes from heart to brain than from brain to heart

Heart rate variability measured environmental and physiological challenges as reflected by the variation of the heart’s beat to beat intervals. It measures the flexibility of our heart and nervous system which reflects our health and fitness as well as how well we are balancing our mental and emotional lives. Having a moderate level of variability is healthy and indicative of an ability to adapt and deal with challenges

The chemicals released which lead to feelings and emotions last for about 90-120 seconds. Anything after that is self-induced and perpetuated

Coherent heart can amplify the energy of the brain by 50-300x. By focusing on our heart and emotions, the hearts beating serves as an amplifier, increasing the synchronization between the heart and brain and creates coherence not only in the physical organs but also in the electromagnetic field surrounding our body. Very clear connection between the quality of our heart’s rhythm and our overall health

We are only suggestible to the thoughts that equal our emotional state

Heart lock in meditation – breathe through your heart center and chest for about ten minutes. Once you couple that with elevated emotions, send it beyond your body and marry it with your intention. This will help your heart go into a coherent state

Uses kaleidoscopes to induce trance and open up people to be suggestible to mystical state. Plays these videos before the mind movies for this reason

Mind movies (words, phrases, images, videos, songs of the future you want) help set clear intentions of the future you want to create, program unconscious and conscious mind into that new future, changing brain and body biologically to look like future has already happened, and paid with music to recondition body and mind to remember new future. watch first thing in morning or before bed as you’re most open at these times. This helps make your future as real and three dimensional as possible. By bringing in every sense, we make it real even before it actually happens. Recommends doing the kaleidoscope and mind movies together for about a month and to have several (wellness, health, work…)

The standing and walking meditations are meant to keep your intention and energy up throughout the day

Day to day life is Newtonian and thought of in terms of space-time where space is infinite but in the quantum world it is time-space and time is infinite. We travel through this world in terms of space as there is no future and no past

The more whole you feel the less lack you experience, and therefore the less you want. How can you want, or live in lack, when you feel whole? If there is less lack, there is less of the need to create from duality, polarity, and separation. How can you want when you’re whole? When you create from wholeness you feel like you already have it. There is no longer wanting, trying, wishing, forcing, predicting, fighting, or hoping – after all, hope is a beggar. When you create from a state of wholeness, there are only knowing and observing. This is the key to manifesting reality: being connected, not separate

Simply by placing your attention on the unified field – as you become of aware of it, notice it, experience it, feel it, interact with it, and stay present with that moment after moment – it shows up and unfolds in your reality on a daily basis. How does it show up and unfold? As unknowns: serendipities, synchronicities, opportunities, coincidences, being in the right place at the right time, and moments filled with awe

The discipline is to:

Allow your consciousness to merge with a greater consciousness

Surrender deeper into intelligent love

Trust in the unknown

Continuously surrender some aspect of the limited self to join the greater self

Lose yourself in nothing to become everything

Relax into an infinite deep-sea of coherent energy

Keep unfolding deeper and deeper into oneness

Continuously let go of control

Feel greater and greater degrees of wholeness

As a consciousness, moment by moment become aware, pay attention to, experience, be present with, and feel more and more of this unified field all around you – without returning your awareness back to three dimensional reality

Melatonin is thought to be very important for these transcendental experiences and production of melatonin is highest between 1-4am and is why this is the best time to have transcendental moments through meditation

The pineal gland can tune into the electromagnetic field and convert and descramble this information into something meaningful. There are 4 steps needed to activate the gland: exert internal pressure on it to create electrical impulses and then an electromagnetic field through the flex breathing discussed earlier; the increased speed of the cerebrospinal fluid gets the gland to release some powerful melatonin; this aroused your mind and relaxes your body and allows you to pick up on signals from the unified field

What we are training for is greater levels of wholeness, oneness, love, and higher consciousness. An elevation in consciousness is accompanied with an elevation in awareness and perception, raising and heightening your senses

True leadership never needs confirmation from others. It just requires a clear vision and a change in energy – that is, a new state of being – that is sustained long enough and executed with a strong enough will that it causes others to raise their own energy and become inspired to do the same. Once they do raise themselves from their own limited state of being to a new energy, they see the same future that their leader sees. There is power in numbers.

When someone is truly engaged in change, they are less likely to talk about it and more prone to demonstrate it. They are working on living it.

What I got out of it

Have to change your energy before you change anything in your life, have to live today as if that future state you want has already happened, several different times of meditation and breathing techniques (energy centers meditation), importance of brain/heart coherence, need clear intention and elevated emotion – creating an electromagnetic signature that is equal to your state of being. You will literally tune in to the energy of a new future and the unified field will help endorse your creation, key to manifesting your reality is to be connected and not separate, elevation of consciousness is accompanied with an elevation in awareness and perception, where you put your awareness is where you put your energy

Dr. Hyman details very convincing evidence on why eating the right types of fats is the healthiest, most satisfying and most sustainable way to live a long and healthy life. Provides a great 21 day program to jump start your metabolism, lose weight, reverse chronic health problems, improve sleep and clarity of mind (recipes, supplements and other tips)

Key Takeaways

Food is not just a source of energy or calories, food is information. It contains instructions that affect every biological function of your body

Simply eating less and exercising more almost always fails in the long term as it puts the body in “starvation mode” which is unsustainable. Eating a diet high in healthy fats helps you lose weight without effort and feel satisfied the entire time which is what makes it so sustainable

The quality of our diet is paramount – real, whole, fresh, unadulterated foods. Eating these real, nutrient dense foods help you lose weight without effort but also give you more energy and clarity without ever craving sweets, carbs or other junk food

The importance of sleep along with this diet cannot be overstated. A minimum of 7-8 hours per night is vital for a healthy body and mind. If you’re used to sleeping less, force yourself to stay in bed for 7-8 hours. Your mind and body will soon learn that it is allowed to sleep and will use the opportunity to catch up on its “sleep debt”

Extremely thorough book, good tips on nutrition, supplements, lifestyle. Gives a very thorough account on what to do specifically for certain diseases such as heart conditions, diabetes, cancer, etc. If you or a loved one suffer from any of these, definitely take a closer look at this book.

One Spirit Medicine helps restore mental, physics, emotional and spiritual well being through vision quest, diet, nutrition and stress management

Key Takeaways

Spirit is the invisible world where we are all one and interconnected

Disease comes from imbalance between spirit and harmony

LEF – Luminous Energy Field, an aura that we all give us and is made up of our ancestors, diet, trauma, diseases, thoughts, beliefs and more. The link between the visible and invisible world we all inhabit

Gut is second brain and extremely important to take care of it

Must detox gut, body, brain before can upgrade

Avoid GMOs, corn, soy, grains, sugar

Fasting, even just 6pm to noon the next day, intermittent fasting) helps a lot

Autophagy – cell death, the recycling of cell waste is so important and can speed up the process through exercise, fasts, diet, detox and eating enough phytonutrients

Recommends 1 day of fasting every 3-4 weeks

Become “prey” once we fear something

Fear is the deadliest emotion as it blinds us to love and opportunities

Beliefs cause stress and fear, not people or situations

In today’s world, over stimulation leads to an over active fight/flight response

Must build in times of complete relaxation. Every hour, day, week, month and year take some time out to just reflect and be grateful

Importance of day dreaming cannot be over exaggerated

Lessening fear of death opens you up to love and to better handle life, see the big picture

Personal myths, the limiting stories we tell ourselves, are omnipresent and play a much bigger role in our lives than we realize. They shape our beliefs, values and thoughts which end up shaping our lives

Death is simply a transition from our “particle” (local) to “wave” (omnipresent) state

Medicine Wheel

South = serpent = life force = instincts. Afraid of change, being vulnerable

Don’t be tethered or blinded by the past or because of other’s perceptions of you.

“Male or female, when we finally let go of who we think we’re supposed to be and shed our fear of disapproval, we open our eyes to the new opportunities we encounter. We’re no longer afraid to be curious, to ask questions, to take risks.”

West = Jaguar = Divine Feminine. Confrontation, acceptance and welcoming of death

Inner confidence, balance and power leads to “defeating” death by ensuring continuity of consciousness (knowing our nature is outside of time)

Complexity and harmony lead to health (heart rate variability)

Acceptance of death leads to a fuller life as we know how fleeting and precious our time on this Earth is

“It takes courage to stay with fear and breathe into the emotion rather than run away from it or try to subdue it. But when courage becomes bravado, it can be our undoing…”

Initiation of death is a lifelong process

North = way of the sage = stillness, which comes from stopping of desires

Stillness is not an end in itself but allows us to see entire nature of creation, the bigger picture in all our lives

“…reality is an illusion, albeit one we are jointly re-creating in every instant…We come to realize that the universe mirrors back to us perfectly our beliefs, our intentions, our sincerity. What is is the product of the map of reality you carry inside you. If you want to change your experience, you need to change the map.”

Only when still can we extract the universe’s wisdom

Allows us to rise above ourselves and time to clearly see the results of ours and other’s beliefs and actions

Non-action often takes more strength/maturity than action

Find stillness in the pause between breaths

East = Eagle = journey of the visionary, rebirth

Ability to see big picture while simultaneously zooming in on important details

Appreciate each moment in all its wonder – every second is sacred

“I” is not separate from anyone or anything as we are all one, united

All collectively dreaming together. Accepting this gives you power as you realize you can change it

Once you meet future you, what you want to become, you can embody those qualities today and take a step to realizing that future reality

Doesn’t recommend fretting about calories once you have an idea of how much you eat. For the average athlete he recommends a diet of 20% carbs, 65% fats and 15% protein

A big proponent of the ketogenic diet (body burns fat instead of carbs). This takes some time for the body to get used to but leads to great health, energy, focus. If want to try the ketogenic diet, aim for a diet of 80-90% fat calories, 10-15% protein and 5-10% carbs (eaten at night)

Gut discomfort has some main contributors – gluten, fodmap (foods which leave a lot of residue in the gut such as garlic, onion, fruit with high fructose, beans, wheat, dairy), low enzyme activity, insufficient gut bacteria, too much gut bacteria, yeast/fungus/parasites

Eat before a workout or race – blended and juiced foods, moderate caffeine (.5mg per lb or about 1 small cup of coffee), some carbs (like 100g or 2 cups of white rice with some sea salt and MCT), fats (like MCT, coconut oil/butter), hydrolyzed whey protein or bone broth (something easier to absorb that steak/eggs)

Most time saving workouts – quick workouts, workout indoors, minimize offseason training, have a simple home gym, workout alone, super slow weight training, bike to work, include the family in workouts, cross train with friends and family, “greasing the groove” (do something often but never too intense, i.e., 5 pullups every time you walk by the pull up bar)

10 rules for becoming an ancestral athlete – change your lens (health vs. performance of any new exercise, supplement, diet, etc.), be uncomfortable (many things in life benefit from volatility and pain), be comfortable (make sure to rest and recover), work (constant movement is essential – long walks, pull up bars in office, etc.), optimize fertility, eat natural foods, detox a couple times per year, use new tech and science to your benefit, keep a clear head (doing one thing at a time and do a great job, the first time), worry less

What I got out of it

Extremely detailed read on how to train, eat, rest, recover and reach your potential. There was way too much to cover in this book and if you’re interested in serious training, recovery, nutrition, etc. this book is definitely worth reading in its entirety

Rich Roll tells his inspiring story of lazy, overweight, addicted into an all vegan and ultra marathon lifestyle

Key Takeaways

Rich Roll was a very overweight 40 year old who transformed himself with marathon training and a vegan diet

7 day juice cleanse that Rich used to start his transformation found here

Rich became a very good swimmer and had his choice of schools, eventually ending up at Stanford. He soon found that alcohol alleviated a lot of his social angst and consumed way too much.

He went to law school and partied too much, as he did in college and big city life was not conducive to him being sober. He somehow made it through, got a good job and was engaged but his alcoholism soon took away his marriage and job. He went to AA and eventually rehab, changing career from entertainment litigation to starting his own entertainment law firm, eventually finding his supportive and amazing wife along the way.

Rich wasn’t able to get into an Ironman initially so he set his sights even higher, an Ultraman. He trained professionally for the first time in his life and ended up having tremendous success although he was one of the few amateurs in this field

While training, had a really bad accident but decided to keep his dream alive. Security is a cop out. Embrace the fear and unknown

The rest of the book describes his incredible struggle of doing 5 ironman length races in a week. Amazing determination

Book ends with his tips on nutrition, recipes and more. Obviously plant based, but also no gluten or dairy and has recommendations for which plants and fats to load up on

What I got out of it

People can do much more than they think they can. When you feel like you can’t do any more, you’re likely only 40% there. Keep pushing. He also does a good job of advocating his “plant power” lifestyle but asks you to experiment for yourself and do what makes you feel good. I’m a big fan of this as I don’t believe there typically is a “one size fits all” for diet, nutrition, lifestyle, etc.

Best leaders move seamlessly through 4 quadrants – I, IT (short-term), IT (long-term), WE

Few leaders think about how they think, their weaknesses, brand, leaderships qualities and therefore have little self-awareness

Maturity is key to be a great leader – differentiation between knowledge and wisdom

True leaders aim to strip away illusions and see deeper realities – able to integrate knowledge and wisdom, more holistic view, no preconceived answers, continuously try to flush out hidden assumptions

Relationships tend to fail because of either poor communication or low levels of trust

Effective communication has two basic aspects – transmission and reception

3 levels of communication -what people say, what people think or feel and most deeply, what people mean

Making others feel heard is extremely motivating

Trust givers trust people automatically where trust earners must make others prove themselves first

TRUST – taking responsibility for understanding other people’s traits

Internal coherence lays foundation for extraordinary performance and also to develop deeper and longer lasting relationships (ultimate prize in life

Leaders must be able to transform their personal leadership qualities, real development and the corporate culture

When hiring, look at what the business needs and if necessary, bring someone in and train them rather than trying to fit the role to the person

Use MAP to get at the true meaning of what people say. Move attention to body and breathe, appreciate the speaker, play back the underlying meaning

Watkins is the founder of Holacracy – Tony Hsieh recently implemented at Zappos

Clarify purpose; clarify all decision making forums; define limit of authority; define reporting process, establish clear accountability; create new roles; assign new accountabilities to new roles; establish new policies or changes to existing policies; define ways of working within teams

What I got out of it

Being self-aware is absolutely vital and focusing on the different areas (physiology, emotion, cognitive, maturity, values / Behavior, networks, impact) is key. Must be healthy before can focus on emotions, cognition…

Pete Egoscue argues that modern man has so many dysfunctions due to lack of motion. With his breakdown of dysfunctions in Condition I, II, III or DLux (excellent), you can quickly diagnose yourself and start the exercises he prescribes. He argues that these regiments will help get to the root of the problem and often avoid costly and ultimately ineffective surgery

Key Takeaways

Lack of motion leads to dysfunction

Categorization of dysfunctions into 4 conditions helps him determine which exercises you should be doing

What I got out of it

An interesting read and I agree with many of his points. I will start doing the exercises for Condition I, which is the category I feel I fall into (slightly everted feet, a pronounced S shape curve in my back